The UK’s approaches to peacebuilding

A review that examines how relevant, coherent and effective the UK's approaches to peacebuilding have been.

Score: Green/Amber
  1. Status: Completed
  2. Published: 9 December 2022
  3. Type: Full review
  4. Subject: Fragile states, Peace, security and justice, Women and girls
  5. Assessment: Green/Amber
  6. Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Nigeria
  7. Lead commissioner: Tamsyn Barton
  8. SDGs covered:Peace, justice and strong institutions

Latest news

We have published our review of the UK’s approaches to peacebuilding and awarded a green-amber score. The government has published its response, accepting all six of our recommendations. We have also published our follow-up report.

Summary

As conflicts continue to pose a significant constraint on poverty reduction and sustainable development around the world, progress against Sustainable Development Goal 16: Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies remains essential. In this context, UK aid has made sustained diplomatic and programming investments to address drivers of conflict and help build peace in fragile and conflict-affected countries and regions.

As part of its commitment to transparency, the UK government annually reports against the categories of aid spending agreed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee. One of the spending categories is ‘civilian peacebuilding, conflict prevention and resolution’. Under this category and between 2007 and 2019, the UK government reported an annual expenditure ranging from £87 million (in 2007) to £361 million (in 2016).

The purpose of this review was to examine how relevant, coherent and effective this cross-government investment has been.

Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals relevant to this review are:

  • Sustainable Development Goal 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions

Timeline

Approach

Published 16 May 2022

Evidence gathering

Complete

Review publication

Published 9 December 2022

Government response

Published 26 January 2023

Further scrutiny

Follow-up published 16 May 2024